Energy PS Joseph Njoroge n December 1, 2017. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU | NMG
The Energy ministry plans to extend discounted night-time
electricity tariff, which took effect for industrial and commercial
consumers on Friday, to the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in
the first quarter of next year.
Energy PS Joseph
Njoroge said the SMEs were left out of the lower tariff for power use
between 10pm and 6am because they do not have smart meters, which Kenya
Power
will install in three months.
Under
the new cheaper tariff plan, commercial consumers metered at above 11
kilovolts (kV) are charged Sh5 per kilowatt hour (kWh) from Sh7.50 per
unit, while those metered at between 450 volts to 11kV are paying Sh7
per unit from Sh9.20.
“We want to move to next
category, which is SMEs. The only setback we have is the meters because
for you to have off-peak and on-peak (tariff), you must have a smart
meter which is able to sense and register consumption and the time of
that consumption,” Eng Njoroge told reporters on the sidelines of Kenya
Power’s annual General Meeting in Nairobi on Friday.
The
lower tariff applies to large firms, which will increase production at
night over and above their present capacity during the day in a
deliberate move by the government to prevent manufacturing from shifting
all their production lines to off-peak time.
“We already know how many units these customers consume and we expect them to consume the same number of units.”
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